Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

The picture below shows two mature Ironbarks cut down and removed from alongside the Poverty Gully track in the Diggings Park. Illegal timbergetting from public land has become a bit of a plague lately, and FOBIF has heard both from nearby residents and from rangers of what seem to be semi professional operations effectively looting the park.

Poverty Gully track, July 17: two substantial trees have been cut down, cut up and removed. The pattern has been repeated across the area adjoining Castlemaine and Campbell’s Creek

According to DELWP, ‘Under the Forest Act 1958, people who collect firewood outside designated firewood collection areas or a firewood collection season or take more than the maximum allowable amounts can face fines of up to $8,059, or a maximum penalty of one year imprisonment or both, if the matter proceeded to Court.’

We believe Parks Victoria has embarked on a new effort to tackle the problem. No details are available, and in spite of the odd arrest, the results aren’t convincing. It’s hard to supervise large areas of forest at any one time: if the infractions are of a commercial scale, the appropriate approach would seem to be to investigate outlets, as was done in the
Bendigo area successfully in May.

FOBIF has sent an objection to the Mount Alexander Shire to the displayed plans for a new supermarket at Forest and Urquhart Streets Castlemaine. The essentials of our objection are as follows:

‘We emphasise that we have no opinion on the wisdom of a second large supermarket in the town, or its location, or its design: we have to trust to the competence of council on these matters.

‘Our objection is solely related to the proposed landscape plantings for the development. In particular, I refer to pages 06-02 07-02 and 08-02 in the relevant section of the planning documents.

‘On these pages it is proposed to plant the following environmental weeds around the development:

‘Cootamundra Wattle: this is not only an Environmental Weed, which spreads into the bush, replacing indigenous plants and damaging the natural ecosystem, but it also crosses with our indigenous Silver Wattle and thus is in the process of causing Silver Wattle’s extinction in Castlemaine, because the progeny of Silver Wattles are now crosses, and therefore weeds.  It’s like letting a feral bull into a cattle breeding stud and not having a morning after pill available. Even if a “sterile cultivar” were proposed, this would look the same as the non-sterile ones and thus act as a promotion for Cootamundra Wattle, increasing its popularity with gardeners unaware of its problems.   We also question if a “sterile cultivar” is guaranteed to remain absolutely sterile forever?
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Here’s an activity that should be of wide interest: